


The Haunting of Hightown

by TheEarlyKat



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8318587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEarlyKat/pseuds/TheEarlyKat
Summary: An abandoned estate sits eerily out of place among the lush mansions besides it in Hightown. Few think much of it, for fear of it, and none dare to think about what might be inside.Except for Anders.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I posted this last night at the time it went up on tumblr, but it doesn't seem that I did. For tearsofwinter who asked for the prompt 'this is why I don't let anyone in."

The mansions of Hightown were old things - the stones raised from the times when Tevinter ruled and its citizens growing rich from the profits their slaves unearthed from the deep. Blood mixed deeply with the mortar, keeping the history alive well into the next Ages. Ghosts roamed the halls, vengeful and restless, and none more so than the spectral occupant of the abandoned estate on the corner of Viscount’s Way.

A magister’s property, long forgotten in the mage’s absence. Some old families remembered when Danarius ruled his small section of the Free Marches, but his presence was lost among the tall weeds and the unruly hedges. The ivy climbed high to crack the stonework to hide the intricate carvings. No voice demanded its trimmings, no orders sent to servants and slaves alike to hack it away, and mother nature noticed the silence and rushed to take back what had been so ruthlessly ripped from her. In his place, the ghosts served.

It wasn’t unknown to Hightown that Danarius’ old mansion was haunted. Crashes and bangs sounded from the dark rooms at night, occasionally accompanied by a pained wail. An apparition wandered down hall from hall, glowing first white, then blue, its ethereal form either unaware or uncaring of the state of them. Guards would come if called by unsettled neighbors and a patrol made rounds of the perimeter once a week to keep tabs on the ghost inside. A templar would have served better if a demon was so close at hand. The guards never did play nicely in their castle, and if one or two were to go missing under the dark of night, it was only fresh word to spread through the parties growing only duller by the day.

Theirs names went unknown, just like the current owner of the collapsing mansion. Aveline sent her husband, Donnic, when she wasn’t to make the rounds herself. Where the public saw the guards protecting them, it was the one inside that needed the protection from the public. What would they do if they were to find the slave of the former magister now lived within the peeling walls? Hightown would chitter and chatter until a new myth was made and the dare would be to speak to the spectre rather than avoid it. The Viscount would pull up the deed, demand payment for taxes long forgotten by coin not in hand, and take all that the elf had left of himself.

The weedy lawn and unkempt bushes provided a good distraction. The cracked walkway and crawling vines hid the signs of dusty footprints and their maker’s shadow by the window. The eerie glow outmatched the flicker of the bedroom fire. The smell of corpses wafted away the bathing salts and fresh bread.

It was the perfect illusion. It fooled all of Hightown. It fooled even those who called their relation with the ghost almost personal. Sometimes it fooled the ghost himself.

Fenris forgot, sometimes, that he’d removed the bodies. They were a pride to look upon when he descended the stairs those first few mornings - the lifeless bodies of his master’s puppets, now limp from their cut strings and able to do nothing but rot. Rot they did, and the scent grew too much, overpowering the memory of victory, and Fenris had dragged them one by one to the cellar where they were sent out of the back with the rest of the garbage. Mildew still clogged the walls and made the air heavy, until he’d torn the walls down - with bare hands and smashed bottles and the occasional dwarven professional - building them back up properly and in a style in all his choosing. Danarius had no place to hide when all the corners were painted yellow and the floors thick with rugs, a far cry from the dark red paper and hard tiles.

The holes in the roof were fixed when the rain drizzled in to mat the rugs. The door hinges oiled as the creaking woke him in the night. The wine cellar refilled, the light fixtures replaced, the larder stocked. The creeping ivy creeped, the untrimmed hedges stayed untrimmed, and the weeds propagated.

It was his home - Fenris would see it stayed in his possession - and if it meant little company due to the nature of the outside, it only meant the illusion was still working.  
At least, it was, for those that had not been inside.

“I’m coming to your place.” Anders’ statement was met by a lift of a brow from Fenris and varying degrees of disgust from the others. Hawke looped an arm around the mage’s shoulders and tugged him close to his side.

“We fought a high dragon and you don’t want to spend the night in a fluffy and, might I add, clean mattress in a different mansion?”

“Or the Hanged man,” Varric offered from somewhere behind.

They were all lagging after the fight. Anders didn’t need to be a healer to recognize exhaustion when he saw it. A favor of one leg over another, a little swing to the arms, squinted eyes unfocused on the path ahead. He was, however, a healer, and knew every single one of them was injured more than he had the capacity to fix. As much as Hawke joked, wasn’t a wave of his hand that snapped bone into back and knit flesh back together. It was time and energy and knowledge that he didn’t have when he was low on mana and sleep. A proper bed was what he needed, and there was one with his name on it.

“If I’m to sleep in spilled alcohol, I’m going to sleep in the best,” Anders told him, wriggled his way out of Hawke’s grasp. He took Fenris’ arm in his and wrapped it around himself. Fenris let his arm go limp but Anders caught it and pulled it back over his shoulders before it could fall back to the elf’s side. “I’ll even put a bandage on like a good healer to keep the bed bugs out.”

Fenris snorted. “You suggest my house is dirty enough to have such things.” Anders blinked slow, the smile spreading slower across his face, as the two rogues gave them a look.

“Have you seen your mansion lately? It broods just as darkly as you do.”

Anders gave a deep hum of agreement and entwinted his fingers with the hand now willingly curved around him. “It’s closer than both Hawke’s and the Hanged Man. Like you said, we did just fight a high dragon, and if it means one less step…”

Varric waved them off at the stairs dividing Kirkwall in half. He took the long winding case down to Lowtown, and what would eventually become Darktown just a lift lower, while Hawke, with Fenris and Anders, ascended, much to their leadened legs’ complaints. Hawke used it as an excuse to see them only as far as the rusty gate, mumbling a tired goodnight and a halfhearted reminder that he’d see them tomorrow afternoon for their pay. Fenris led Anders inside with a gesture, closing the door shut after him.

Anders inhaled deep and exhaled hard, his lungs expelling the dust and blood and fear they’d been absorbing for hours. Woodsmoke and lyrium were a welcome change, as was the faint and light scent of pollen. “Did you get flowers?”

Fenris nodded. “Some of the weeds are not simply weeds, and the corners of the rooms were growing dark.”

Anders grinned and followed Fenris up the short flight of steps to their bedroom. “Do you suppose everyone still thinks you have the bodies literally the rooms?”

“Suppose?” Fenris shook his head. “They believe it.”

Anders hummed and stretched a hand out to trail his fingers over a petal from a vase they passed before entering. “I can’t imagine what they’d do if they found out the truth.”  
Fenris chuckled. “I fear it also. Thus, I do not let them in.”


End file.
